December 3, 2007

Said Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain. "This case has done quite a bit of damage to how the Sudanese government will be perceived; they have done their country no favors."

He was commenting on news of the pardon of Gillian Gibbons, the British woman imprisoned for allowing her schoolchildren to name the class teddy bear Muhammad.

So..the President of the Sudan, al-Bashir, personally pardoned Ms. Gibbons.

A bit like George Bush ordering a sheriff in East Elbow, West Virginia, to release a drunk driver before there's even been a hearing.

A little info on Mr. Bashir... On December 12, 1999, al-Bashir brought troops and tanks against parliament and ousted Hassan al-Turabi, the speaker of parliament, in a palace coup.

The legal system in Sudan is based on English common law and Islamic law; as of 20 January 1991, the now defunct Revolutionary Command Council imposed Islamic law in the northern states; Islamic law applies to all residents of the northern states regardless of their religion; however, the CPA establishes some protections for non-Muslims in Khartoum; some separate religious courts; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction with reservations; the southern legal system is still developing under the CPA following the civil war; Islamic law will not apply to the southern states.

10th largest country in the world. North is Muslim; the South Christian.

Gibbons said, "I have encountered nothing but kindness and generosity from the Sudanese people."Except for the demands for my torture and execution, I found the Sudanese to be quite wonderful hosts!

"...to portray Muslims as intolerant."I wonder why people repeatedly, constantly, and with great frequency think of Islam as a religion of violent intolerance, I mean over and over and over again?Where does this arise from?

Pogo said..."Gibbons said, 'I have encountered nothing but kindness and generosity from the Sudanese people.' Except for the demands for my torture and execution, I found the Sudanese to be quite wonderful hosts!"

No kidding. Check for the lobotomy scar. There's something faintly orwellian about such a statement, the sort of thing that makes you think of Soviet political prisoners and other captives tearfully reading their "confession" on camera.

Eden: And this is your way? Abducting women and children? Raisuli: I prefer to fight the European armies, but they do not fight as men - they fight as dogs! Men prefer to fight with swords, so they can see each other's eyes! Sometimes, this is not possible. Then, they fight with rifles. The Europeans have guns that fire many times promiscuously and rend the Earth. There is no honor in this - nothing is decided from this. Therefore, I take women and children when it pleases me! (The Wind and the Lion 1975)

George says, "Islamic law will not apply to the southern states.". True, but a bit of further background: it was the imposition of Sharia on the South (but not yet at the time, ironically, to the North) that was the triggering event for the start of the 2nd Civil War.

People who "never miss an opportunity to portray Muslims as intolerant" don't exist. In order to take advantage of every opportunity to portray Muslims as intolerant, one would have to spend every waking moment doing so. Even the most dedicated of us are known to take an occasional cocktail break.

I mean, from the most secular Muslim-majority country on Earth comes this story:

"A Turkish prosecutor has launched a probe into whether a book by best-selling atheist writer Richard Dawkins is an attack on religious values -- a move that could lead to the prosecution of the book's Turkish publisher."